Congress Tells Obama to Get Lost!

With a Republican in the White House, GOP lawmakers in Congress finally have the opportunity to scrap former President Barack Obama’s litany of overburdensome environmental and gun regulations.

And, thankfully, they are fully intent on using this newfound power.

As reported by Newsmax, on Thursday the GOP-controlled House passed a resolution that eliminated the requirement that Social Security recipients with mental disabilities undergo extended background checks before purchasing a gun.

“There is no evidence suggesting that those receiving disability benefits from the Social Security Administration are a threat to public safety,” argued Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

“Once an unelected bureaucrat unfairly adds these folks to the federal background check system, they are no longer able to exercise their Second Amendment right,” he added.

The bill eliminating the gun rule now needs approval from the Senate.

Likewise, the GOP-controlled Senate issued a final approval to eliminate an Obama-era regulation known as the “stream rule” that had prevented coal-mine debris from being dumped into streams near mine sites.

Note that the senators did not revoke this rule because they hate streams. But as Luke Popovich, vice president of external communications for the National Mining Association, wrote in a blog post last month, the “stream rule” is a job-killing measure that put federal bureaucrats at the Office of Surface Mining in charge of decisions that should be handled by the states or other federal agencies.

“The stream rule is to bad regulations what the Sistine Chapel is to Renaissance art,” Popovich wrote. “It’s a pure expression of all that ordinary Americans loathe about rule by bureaucracy.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., also expressed displeasure in the rule, arguing it would threaten coal jobs and damage communities in coal-producing states — like Kentucky.

“The legislation we passed today will help stop this disastrous rule and bring relief to coal miners and their families,” he said Thursday.

The House had already passed a bill revoking the “stream rule,” so now it only needs to go to President Donald Trump for a signature.

According to The Hill, lawmakers were adamant in their belief that the rule’s repeal would not harm the environment.

“We are not doing anything negative for the environment,” Rep. David McKinley said Tuesday. “We’re not going back to the 1950s and 1960s, but we will be able to, hopefully, get our coal mines back in operation.”